The Gravettian Culture that Survived an Ice Age

The Gravettians dominated Ice Age Europe, where they hunted mammoths with particular aplomb. But in a warming world, their particular movement fell by the wayside. With so much of the world's water locked up in ice, the Gravettians built houses out of mammoth bones and carved early art — including the Venus of Willendorf statues.

The Gravettian people first established themselves in Europe about 32,000 years ago, according to a new study that traces their movement across the continent, and supplanted the incumbent Aurignacian culture, ushering in a new technological era.
Members of the Gravettian culture wore shells as ornaments, sewed clothing with bone needles and kept working dogs they fed with reindeer meat. They fashioned a bristling armory that included the eponymous Gravette point — a narrow stone spear tip used to puncture big game. And they may have used bows and spear-throwers as well. They walked across the Ice Age mammoth steppe that dominated Europe, through the dry grasses that fed their imposing prey.